Why the Cheatriots Couldn't Win

Here are some great stats I saw about this past weekend's superbowl, many of which are in this article about the effect of luck on the game, and which I really think highlight well my lasting impressions of this game, these teams, and the 2011-2012 NFL season.

For starters, some stats to give an idea of just how amazing the Giants' feat this year is. For example, did you know that Eli Manning and the Giants finished 3-0 on the road in this postseason, while all other teams in the NFL finished 0-9 on the road? So in a year where nobody seemed to be able to rise up and win a game against a better team in the playoffs, the Giants stepped up and beat the Falcons at home, followed by the 15-1 Packers at Lambeau, and then the 13-3 49ers in San Fran, and then they followed it up by winning the Superbowl in Indianapolis against the 13-3 Cheatriots.

Moving to their performance in the Superbowl itself, in their Super Bowl 42 meeting, the Giants held New England to 14 points, which was 23 fewer points than its regular-season average in that season of incredible offensive outbursts for the Cheats. In their second Super Bowl meeting this past Sunday night, the Giants held New England to 17 points, again 15 fewer points than its regular-season average. The Giants defense simply stepped up big time against the Cheatriots, both times they have met in recent memory in the superbowl. At more than two touchdowns below the Cheatriots' season averages, it is really worth mentioning.

And regarding Eli Manning, I did not realize this but Eli Manning is now 7-0 as a starter on the road in the playoffs, with 12 touchdown passes versus two interceptions. That right there might be one of the sickest stats you will ever see about the NFL postseason. Forget Mark Sanchez and his four road playoff wins, Eli Manning at 7-0 on the road in the playoffs, with 12 tds and just 2 picks? Mark Sanchez doesn't even dream of being that good in the clutch. What a stud Eli turned himself into this year. Much as I hate to admit it.

Some interesting stats comparing this year's Giants run to that of last year's Green Bay Packers, and the general mediocrity of the teams in this year's championship, during the regular season:

The Packers and Giants, the last two Super Bowl champions, were a combined 19-13 during the regular season followed by a combined 8-0 in the postseason over the past two years. If you recall, the Packers were all but done after an embarrassing loss at home to the Lions in Week 14 back in 2011, and then they backed into the playoffs anyways and the rest was history. And this season, the Giants' Week 15 debacle loss at home to the hapless Redskins in a game that wasn't even as close as the 23-10 score would indicate seemed to all but ensure that they would miss the playoffs as well, but then wins at the Jets and against the Cowgirls in the last two weeks of the season catapulted them in anyways, and once again, the rest has since become the stuff of NFL legend.

Also, the Giants and Cheatriots finished the 2011-2012 season with a combined record of just 6-6 against teams that had winning seasons, and that includes all the playoff games. The Giants beat only New England this year during the regular season among its 9 wins, 8 of which were against teams who ended the year 8-8 or worse. Meanwhile, the Cheats did not win a single game against an over-.500 regular season team despite winning 13 games overall this year. Think about that -- the Cheatriots played only two games against winning teams in 2011 -- the Steelers and the Giants in Weeks 8 and 9 this year -- and they lost them both, by an average of 6 points. Neither of these teams faced particularly strong schedules this year, nor did either team perform particularly well against the few good teams they did face, but just like last year's Packers, they got hot at the right time and rode their big players to victory.

There are also some good stats that I think give some solid insight into how the Cheatriots managed to lose this game:

Tom Brady completed 25 of his first 31 pass attempts in Superbowl XLVI, but then ended the game completing only 2 of his final 10 attempts as he desperately tried to lead his team on a late-game comeback. Eli Manning, however, completed 25 of his first 34 pass attempts much like Tom Brady did, but then he finished the game completing five of his final six attempts, including the amazing pass to Mario Manningham (see below) that will go down as the biggest and most amazing play of this year's superbowl.

Which really illustrates the larger point here, to those of you who are big football fans and have watched a lot of these big games over the past decade or so: Tom Brady is simply not as good as he used to be. This should not surprise anyone, as he is now in his 12th year playing in a league where the vast majority of players don't ever survive half that long. By NFL standards, Brady is getting up there in age, and the simple fact is that, when his team was recording signs and stealing plays and winning superbowls back in the early 2000s, Tom Brady was at the time one of the absolutely most accurate, best decision-making quarterbacks in the league. Nowadays, Brady's accuracy is just not up there with the Rodgers's and the Brees's, and it really showed in this year's superbowl.

For starters, let's take a look at the play everyone (including Brady's wife) is talking about, Wes Welker's huge drop late in the 4th quarter which would have sustained a key Cheatriots drive and gone a long way towards ensuring a New England victory in the superbowl:



If you take a look at the play above and you're capable of some objectivity that so many people lack when it comes to their favorite sports team, this really isn't about Welker missing the catch, even a little bit. It's a bad throw. Period. Not only is this ball about four feet straight over Welker's head, when it had no need to be given that Welker is completely wide, wide open, but it'a also at his back shoulder, making this a very,very difficult catch. Now, don't get me wrong -- Wes Welker is the most productive receiver in the NFL for the past several years, and he does quite often find a way to make this catch. And I can certainly feel for Tom Brady when I see his top receiver get both hands on a thrown ball in a situation where he was not otherwise touched by any defenders. But at the end of the day, the inescapable conclusion from watching this play is that Tom Brady made a bad throw. The precision accuracy that used to be such a hallmark of Brady's success back in the early days of his Cheatriots career, is now gone, at least in any consistent aspect. In this case, Brady had his #1 target wide open on an absolutely crucial, nearly superbowl-winning play, but Brady's throw ended up in an extremely difficult spot to catch it, even for Wes Welker. Gisele, Tom and anyone else can say what they want, but this one is probably 85% on Brady, and 15% on Welker in my view.

Similarly, let's look at the next biggest play in the game, from the Cheatriots' perspective -- the Chase Blackburn interception:



Once again, here is Tom Brady given all the time in the world behind the line, but when none of his wideouts are open, Brady opts to go with his ever-trusty tight end Rob Gronkowski and heaves one up there, at a time when Gronk had clearly beaten his defender and was a good five yards open downfield and counting. Unfortunately, just look at that pass. Brady throws it a little off his back foot, a little tentatively, and the result is just what one might expect -- this ball is at least ten feet short. And really, it's even shorter than that, because Gronk had his guy beat when the ball left Brady's hands, so Brady should have led Gronk even deeper with his throw, but this toss ends up about 10 feet short of where Gronk was when Brady threw the ball. There's just not even close to enough juice on this throw, and this is the one and only reason why Chase Blackburn was able to make what was admittedly a nice catch on his part. But if this ball is thrown well, there's no chance for Blackburn to even make a play, and given Gronkowski's performance this year, it seems a pretty safe bet he takes this one into the end zone for a huge score that almost certainly changes the outcome of this game. Instead, however, Brady launches a duck well short of its intended target, and this gives Blackburn -- who was already behind the play right from when Brady threw the ball -- the opportunity to be in better position that Gronkowski to make the huge interception and take away one of the Cheatriots' last good opportunities to score in this game. The simple fact is, Tom Brady did not used to miss this badly on his longballs in superbowls past, but now his accuracy is just not what it used to be, and it shows in his results.

Before anyone says I'm just nitpicking here, let's take a look at the Giants' biggest play of the superbowl, which was this amazing catch by Mario Manningham down the left sideline late in the 4th quarter with his team needing a score in the final minutes to take the lead from the Cheatriots:



I mean, just look at that play. Where Tom Brady stepped down in his team's biggest throws of the day, making questionable decisions and missing his spots as detailed above, Eli Manning shows us what Brady used to do in the superbowl back in the day -- he absolutely nails it. Nails it! As amazing of a job catching that ball as Manningham did -- hauling it in, feet both in bounds, retaining possession while being hit and tackled out of bounds -- I just can't get away from the fact that Eli Manning's throw is even better. Play that vid over again and just look at where that ball landed. And this was with Eli also off his back foot and under pressure to boot, but just look at what Eli did there. He lofted this one and landed it in a spot where absolutely, unequivocally, the only player who could make any play on the ball whatsoever is his guy. Those defenders -- though Manningham seemed like he was draped with coverage when this play happened in real time -- but those defenders literally had no shot to even touch this ball. Manning put this throw perfectly where only Manningham could make a play, and yet just close enough to him to enable him to actually be able to make that play.

This is what winning superbowl quarterbacks do, and this is exactly what Tom Brady used to do back in the day when his Cheatriots were winning superbowls themselves. But not anymore. Now, impeccable, almost impossibly perfect throws like this are what Eli Manning does to Tom Brady's team. While Brady, on the other hand, basically, well, Brady's himself. You thought Tebowing was big, but Bradying might be I think the Next Big Thing.

I'll leave this post with a couple of final thoughts about the superbowl, and the Cheatriots's cheating past.

Before Spygate, Bill Belicheat's Cheatriots were 12-2 overall in the playoffs, and 3-0 in superbowls. But since the team was caught cheating in the middle of the 2007 NFL season, the Cheatriots are now 4-4 overall in the postseason, and 0-2 in the superbowl. If you choose not to see a connection there, then that's your prerogative. But then it's my prerogative to laugh at you, which I will most definitely do.

Also, I saw pointed out in that article interestingly that the Giants are 4-0 in the superbowl when Bill Belicheat is on the sidelines. That of course is 2-0 with Bellicheat as an assistant under Bill Parcells, and now 2-0 against Bellicheat's Cheatriots team. Maybe they can hire him as a strategic consultant or something if they ever make it back to the big game again, since it seems unlikely to this writer that the Cheatiots will make a return trip to the superbowl anytime soon.

Superbowl

Lest anyone have any doubts or be at all unclear about exactly what the problem is in Philadelphia with Eagles coach Andy Reid, one has only to look at this past weekend's superbowl to have it all clearly laid out. Unlike Giants' coach Tom Coughlin -- make that two-time Superbowl winning Giants' coach Tom Coughlin -- Andy Reid could never be a part of what the Giants just did, not only once, but twice within the span of five years. Andy Reid sleeps well at night knowing that he has won what, five NFC Easts in 12 years as Eagles head man, but he is simply unable to lead his team on a post-season run like we have been treated to watching Tom Coughlin do twice in very recent memory. And I dare say that Reid has had more talent come through the halls of the Linc over the past half a decade than Coughlin has had in New Jerseyork.

You want to know what we Philadelphians want, if "all" of Andy Reid's success here in Philly just isn't enough? I wish I had Tom Coughlin as my coach. Period. Sure, we would have to deal with the late-season collapses, and the disciplinary issues, and the too-tough mentality, etc. But Andy Reid gets all the complaints anyways, thanks to his consistently embarrassing defense, his highly questionable assistant coaching decisions, his ineptitude on game-day and countless other very noticeable weaknesses, all of which seem to be magnified with the bigger the game is, again the total opposite of Tom Coughlin and the Giants.

But enough about the Eagles. Let's talk about them Cheatriots. Another good showing, huh? It really is amazing how mediocre this team looks in big games when they don't know every single play the opposition is going to run, one after the next after the next. It really is amazing. And despite what many New Englanders out there will be screaming from the rooftops all this week ever since about 10pm local time on Sunday night, make no mistake about it: the Cheatriots needed this win. They needed it. They still need it. This team absolutely, positively needs to win another superbowl, to show the world that they actually have it in them to win one when they play by the rules. Right now, the legacy of the Cheatriots is more than merely questionable. That legacy is in downright mutiny right now. These guys won three superbowls in four years, each one by merely a field goal, and it turns out after the fact that they knew every single play their opponents were running all game long. And they were only winning by field goals? Now, since getting caught cheating and being forced to play by the same rules as everyone else does in their big games, the Cheatriots have found their way to two more superbowls -- both of which they were favored in, as they were playing each year a Giants squad that had had by all rights not nearly as good of a regular season as the Cheatriots had. For crying out loud, this year's Giants team became the first team in NFL history to win a superbowl after going just 9-7 in the regular season. Said another way, this Giants squad was the worst team ever to win a superbowl in the NFL. And what did the Cheatriots do against them when it all mattered most, after Gisele had sent her email and gotten everyone close to her to pray for her man to win his fourth championship?

Absolutely nothing. Yes, Tom Brady led his Cheatriots on an awesome, long drive to end the first half with a touchdown, and another similar drive to start the second half with another score and build his team an 8-point lead early in the third quarter. But take those just two drives away, and the vaunted Cheatiots offense didn't do shiat in this game. I mean, look at the facts -- the Cheats scored just 17 points total in the entire game, after scoring just 20 points when the two teams matched up earlier this season in Week 9 (and only 14 points in the 2007-2008 superbowl). The Cheats just did not click well on offense in the Superbowl, and in general they simply cannot do and have not done much in general against the Giants, one of the few good teams the Cheatriots played all this year.

Unlike the Eli Manning of old, Eli stepped up big time in this superbowl as he looked every bit the part of grizzled, consistent veteran. If you watched the game then you know that Eli didn't get rattled once, not even a little bit, and it was in fact Tom Brady and not Eli who threw the one dumb, off-balance, back-foot pass of the night, leading to an interception on a crucial drive where the Cheats needed to score to get the game back in control. But make no mistake about it -- and I don't care about dropped passes, liberal intentional grounding calls, as none of that changes this conclusion -- but Eli Manning outplayed Tom Brady in this superbowl, plain and simple. In fact, he did so twice this year. And if you watch this game, then you know that the game simply wasn't nearly as close as the score would indicate. The Giants utterly dominated in the first half, somehow going into the locker room with a 1-point deficit despite having held the ball nearly twice as long as the Cheatriots did during the first half of play. And then in the second half, Brady started off with that beautiful long scoring drive to put his team up 17-9 in the game, but after that point, Brady didn't have one highlight in the rest of the game, and the New England defense simply could not stop Eli Manning and the Giants backs and receivers from more or less moving up and down the field at will.

So there it is in a nutshell. The Cheatriots cheated for years and even then were only barely able to squeak out wins in their biggest games some years ago. Nowadays with their ability to steal their opponents' every play taken away from them, the Cheats are still obviously a good team, full of players with much talent on the offense. But the loss of guys like Teddy Bruschi, Willie McGinest, Mike Vrabel, Ty Law, Rodney Harrison, Asante Samuel, Richard Seymour and others have left this team with what can barely even be called a defense, and while knowing every play ahead of time might have been enough to make them look passable on Sunday, having to face every play without foreknowledge showed the Cheatriots for what they really are:

A second-rate team, in a second-rate conference, with a hideous excuse for a defense, and an offense with a number of strong pieces but one that simply did not -- and does not any longer -- get it done in the biggest of spots. It's pretty obvious at this point that the teams the Cheatriots beat in the superbowl in the early 2000s deserve restitution. February 3, 2002: New England 20, St. Louis 17. That Rams team was obviously far better than the Cheatriots, when you consider that the Cheats were observed filming the Rams' signs during the pregame walkthrough, tapes which NFL Commissioner Roger Gooddell immediately destroyed rather than admit specifically what the Cheatriots had stolen from the Rams. As far as I'm concerned, that 3-point win for the Cheats is more like a two-touchdown loss to a clearly better team, and the Rams should be recognized as having won two superbowls in three years with The Greatest Show on Turf. February 1, 2004 New England 32, Carolina 29. Here is another 3-point victory against a team with a superior defense and a thought-to-be inferior offense, but who surely would beaten the Cheatriots in a fair fight. And then of course there was February 6, 2005 New England 24, Philadelphia 21. Still another mere field goal margin of victory against a team that was obviously better than them, with the Cheats once again using foreknowledge of every single play run to build up a lead that the Eagles just ran out of time trying to come back from. Take the cheating out of that game, and one can only assume that the superior Eagles squad from that year would have overcome their coach's inability to prepare for game day to put in a double-digit victory and Philadelphia's only superbowl.

At 59 years old, Bill Belicheat still has the opportunity to coach a great many more years, even going to another team or starting over with a whole new nucleus of players, if he sees fit. But I got news for you, Cheatriots fans -- the window on the career of Tom Brady is almost all the way shut after this past weekend's debacle. Although the AFC is as weak as it's been in years, and there may not be any team in the Cheats' conference that is as good as the Packers, the Saints or the Giants over the next several years, the odds of this Cheatriots squad finding their way back to the superbowl are seeming slim to none in my eyes. And, like mostly everyone else out there living west of Route 91 in Connecticut, the thought of that good riddance of unscrupulous, conniving cheaters from the upper ranks of the NFL is enough to make almost all of us smile.

I'll always hate the Giants with nearly every fiber of my being, but it is clear as day that the right team won on Sunday. Congratulations to the 2011-2012 New York Giants, the only true champions to play in the superbowl this year.

Interesting Football Tidbits

If the NFL playoffs go with the chalk the rest of the way, we will have the New England Cheatriots facing off against the Green Bay Packers in Superbowl XLVI in Indianapolis on February 5. And that will be the first time in NFL history that the two statistically worst defenses in the NFL will match up in the Superbowl. Those two teams each gave up over 411 yards of total offense per game through the 2011 regular season, and while the rush defenses on both teams are more middle-of-the-pack, the Cheats and the Packers are also the two worst teams against the pass in the entire league -- a good 20% worse than even the next-worst pass defending team -- which should be interesting because the passing game is far and away the strength of the other team. If the chalk takes it the rest of the way, we'll be looking at the #2 and #3 offense and the #2 and #2 passing offense, playing against the #31 and #32 teams both in total defense and in passing defense. That game could be just crazy.

Speaking of the playoffs, all the buzz in New York City this week is word that a bunch of Jets teammates have anonymously ripped Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez in the press this week, saying among other things that he has no legitimate fear of being replaced by head coach Rex Ryan, and several players questioning his work ethic. Of course, if you watched "Hard Knocks" this preseason, you already saw shades of that lack of work ethic, and the beginnings of a potential attitude problem, as I think it would be hard for mostly anyone to have been exactly "impressed" with Sanchez's personality if you sat through all the episodes of that series earlier in 2011. In this case, you've got the usual complement of talking heads, former players especially, who are ripshit about this move, questioning any player who would dare take such shots anonymously instead of just coming out and assigning a name to the comment. Because, the thinking goes, the next time Sanchez walks into that locker room, he's going to be wondering "Was it you who said that bad stuff about me?", "Was it you?", "Or you?". But that doesn't really seem to be the case here, does it? In this case, I count at least four different players specifically cited in that story -- at least some of whom are apparently leaders on the team in one capacity or another, so not insignificant players like the story from the third-string quarterback that broke last week. The bottom line for Sanchez is, it's not just one player here or one player there. It's most of his entire team who think these things about him. So focusing on who said it and how we find out who said what is, in my view, completely missing the point in this case. Mark Sanchez's team has a problem with his lack of preparation, his poor work ethic and his entitled attitude, and of course with the results that has led to for the entire team now here, three years in to the Sanchez / Rex Ryan experiment. At this point, the Jets can either waste time chasing down who said what and why they said it, or they can start moving on by beginning to work on fixing those problems. And nothing short of that is going to get the Jets team with this nucleus of players back where they want to be.

And before I go, did anyone else out there see this story? That Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow is Americans' favorite active athlete today? Seems crazy, doesn't it? But "Tebow was recognized by 3 percent of Americans surveyed as their favorite active pro athlete, placing him above Kobe Bryant (2 percent), Aaron Rodgers (1.9 percent), Peyton Manning (1.8 percent) and Tom Brady (1.5 percent) in the Top 5." Above Tom Brady, above Aaron Rodgers, above Peyton Manning? I mean, Tebow is more beloved by sports fans in this country than those three titans who happen to play in the exact same sport, and the exact same position as him, already? That just seems crazy. As does the fact that Tebow takes this top spot much faster than any other athlete since the inception of the poll in 1994, attaining the vote before the end of his second season as a pro. It took LeBron James eight years to reach this status, and Kobe Bryant 11 years before he became America's favorite active pro athlete. I'm not sure I would describe Tim Tebow as my "favorite" pro athlete just now, but I don't have any problem admitting that I would like to watch Tebow play this weekend more than I want to watch any other single athlete in professional sports in the world today. So maybe there's really something to this after all.

NFL Playoffs -- Divisional Round

Another week, and yet again all anybody can talk about in the world of sports is Mr. Timothy Tebow. Man, you just cannot feel good going into a sudden-death, overtime type of situation against that guy, can you? The moment the Steelers lost the overtime coin toss and Denver elected to receive, pretty much everyone in that stadium -- the Steelers and Broncos players included -- knew the Broncs would be winning the game on that drive. Not sure we knew it would happen on the literal first play from scrimmage in overtime, but when you've got Tebow and just need one score to win, its ovah baybeee.

I'll tell you what -- anybody who saw value in the Pittsburgh Steelers this past weekend, giving nine points on the road at an upstart Denver team with something to prove, is out of their minds. Let alone, a Steelers team with a literally limping Ben Roethlisberger, and missing their top runningback, their center, and their leading tackler on defense? Giving nine points. On the road!

That had to have been the most obvious pick I've seen in the NFL playoffs in a few years. And this, from a guy who has had a long-standing rule never to bet against the fix-waiting-to-happen Pittsburgh Steelers. But with all those injuries, going on the road, and giving nine points in a game between two stingy defenses? That story just doesn't make any sense.

Denver's game this weekend at the Cheatriots is a different story, however. Unlike the Steelers, the Cheats are more or less totally healthy right now, and the full roster of key players on offense seem to be firing on all cylinders. New England is also at home this coming week, they have a much better offense than the Steelers even with both teams equally healthy, and Tim Tebow and the Broncos -- who just got beat pretty hard by the Cheatriots a few weeks back -- have that much less to prove this week after the home win against Pittsburgh last weekend. With the line on that game hovering right around two touchdowns, that one is a heck of a lot harder to pick than this past weekend's freest money around, but I'm thinking I would probably hold my knows and go with the Cheatriots as long as the number is under 14. I mean, they'll already know all of Denver's plays ahead of time by the time kickoff comes around next weekend, right?

Elsewhere in the NFL, there wasn't much surprise in the first round playoff games, as all four better seeds won in all four games, three of which (other than the Steelers) were favored by Vegas. The best game this weekend in my mind is the Saints playing at the 49ers, with the Saints installed as an early 5-point favorite on the road, across the country, at a team that was 13-3 in the regular season and which has the league's stingiest points-against defense. As much as I want to go with the home team and take the generous offer of five points, I'm just thinking that the Saints can find a way to eke out a touchdown or so margin of victory in this one.

Elsewhere, it's the Giants getting 8 points at the Packers, another line which intrigues me somewhat. I mean, didn't the Giants just take a late lead at Lambeau and end up losing in the final minutes by 3 points to these same Packers only a month ago thanks to a late Aaron Rodgers comeback drive? This same Giants team that today is clearly playing significantly better than it was a month ago, while the Packers have just as surely come back down to earth a little bit since losing the undefeated season to the Chiefs a couple of weeks later? I was expecting something a little smaller than 8 points, and I am inclined to think that the Giants are the better value on this pick as long as that number remains above a touchdown.

And in the final game of the conference semi-finals, it is the Houston Texans, in their first-ever playoff run as a franchise, traveling to Baltimore to play the Ravens. Houston is getting a lofty 8.5 points from the sharps in Vegas, and even though that is admittedly an awfully big number to give to a seemingly inconsistent team in the Ravens, something tells me that the Ravens will come through nicely at home, where they went 8-0 in the regular season. With Matt Schaub this could easily be an entirely different story, but me thinks that T. J. Yates is probably looking at his worst game as a starting quarterback in the NFL thus far for Houston. Given especially how poorly the Texans have performed against the spread this year, I'll take my chances and go with the Ravens and lay the 8.5 points in this one.

2011 NFL Post-Season Predictions

Finally this past weekend I had time to put the finishing touches on this post, which for the record was written over the couple of weeks leading up to the start of the 2011 NFL regular season. And what a wild Week 1 it was, which will quickly become apparent when you see some of my picks for the postseason this year in the NFL.

NFC East: Eagles
NFC North: Packers
NFC South: Saints
NFC West: Cardinals

NFC Wildcard: Cowboys, Bears

NFC Almost's: Falcons, Lions, Rams

AFC East: Cheatriots
AFC North: Steelers
AFC South: Texans
AFC West: Chargers

AFC Wildcard: Jets, Ravens

AFC Almost's: Chiefs

So, that is a total of four new playoff teams I am predicting in 2011, two in the NFC (Cardinals and Cowboys, replacing the Seahawks and the Falcons), and two in the AFC (Texans and Chargers, replacing the Colts and the Chiefs). Four out of twelve ain't bad, but over the recent past that's still not as much annual turnover as the NFL has seen in its slate of post-season participants, so there are likely some more surprises to come this year. I just think the Seahawks have fallen behind both the Rams and the Cardinals given the moves of this past offseason, and for some reason I decided to hitch my prediction this offseason to Tony Romo, the greatest step-down-in-the-clutch artist in the NFL today, over Matty "Ice" Ryan. Pure. Genius. And in the AFC, I am expecting the Chiefs to impress again this year but they are going to have trouble winning their division again due to a much harder schedule and not being overlooked by their opponents this year, while the Colts are in my mind finished without Peyton Manning at the helm.

I'm not typically one for making detailed post-season predictions for later rounds here without even knowing who is playing who, who is injured, etc. But I will say that I think the Cheatriots look once again to be the class of the AFC if they stay healthy and are likely to show up in the superbowl again this year, while the picture in the NFC is a bit murkier, between the Eagles and the Packers. I'll take the Packers over the Cheatriots in the superbowl in a repeat for Green Bay. Since, just like the Red Sox over the Dirty Decade in Boston, the Cheatriots have never won a damn thing since they haven't been allowed to cheat.

Sports Rants

There's so much going on in the world of sports right now, a lot of which can be downright amazing if viewed in a certain way.

For starters, there's the LeBron James thing, which was all the rage on sports talk radio around the country at the end of last week. Personally, I never thought LeBron was even seriously considering leaving Cleveland until about a week ago. I was sure he would stay, and in fact the only thing I thought that might get him to leave would be if he managed to lead the Cavs to the championship this year. I figured then, after finishing what he started in Cleveland and bringing that loser city their long-awaited sports championship, he might feel free to move on to bigger and better things. But I thought that if he was not able to finish the job this year once again, I simply couldn't see LeBron leaving the city in the lurch and going somewhere else to play out the rest of his career.

And then I saw LeBron's last two games against the Celtics. Sure, all anyone is really talking about is his second to last game, when LeBron put up pretty much the single worst game of his career in an 18-point effort that included an abysmal 30% fg shooting performance on the day. You won't hear much about his last game, where LeBron managed to put up a triple-double including nearly 20 boards on the day, but in reality if you really sat and watched that game as well -- in particular the second half, and really in particular the fourth quarter -- then you know as well as I do that something happened to LeBron before those final two games of the series with Boston. Something happened in that locker room -- maybe between LeBron and a teammate, maybe with his head coach, but it was definitely something. Maybe something went down with management that opened LeBron's eyes to the fact that his future is not or should not be in Cleveland. But to me, LeBron played those last two games -- out of nowhere, mind you -- as if he already knew he was leaving. Before last week, I could not have conceived of circumstances such that LeBron would leave Cleveland without winning a title, but then right before my eyes I feel like I watched those very circumstances unfold in a very public and yet inexplicable way to us fans. One way or another, I still would not be surprised to see LeBron remain a Cav -- in paricular if he can sign a short-term deal and still have time in a few years for his max-dollar mega-contract -- but I can no longer say that I don't expect him to leave Cleveland now. His face looks to me like he already has.

The next item I would be remiss in mentioning is this business about the Phillies being accused of attempting to steal signs from the opposing catcher. It seems that some video was taken of a Phillies coach sitting in the bullpen in left center field with a pair of binoculars and staring seemingly towards the pitchers mound. For their part the Phillies have denied any attempt to steal signs, and explained away the bino's in the bullpen by claiming that the coaches were trying to work on Carlos Ruiz's catching stance, but that is basically cripe since I've seen shots of the coach with the bino's at his eyes during the top half of the inning when the Phillies were at bat and not in the field. As a result, I have to say that is a pretty pathetic and sleazy move by the two-time defending NL champions, as I have always maintained that I can't stand cheating or cheaters or anything associated with it.

All that said, some have suggested that this places the Phillies on a par with the "Spygate" Patriots of some years ago. This is absurd for several reasons. For starters, the Pats won three superbowls in four years by cheating. The Phillies have done nothing of the kind, nor have they thus entirely caused the other teams in the league to entirely restructure their game plans to compete like the unbelievable success of the Patriots did. To compare the Phillies and their one title with this nucleus to the Patriots in that respect is just plain silly before you even start off. And this doesn't even take into account my second point, which is that it's an undeniable fact -- something with you haters out there were oh so quick to point out to me last year when A-Rod was caught stealing signs and communicating them in real time to his teammates -- that stealing signs is an understood part of baseball. Now I'm not trying to justify anyone breaking the rules -- you saw what I wrote just above about this being a bush league move on the part of the Phillies, if true -- but at the same time, equating trying to steal the catcher's signs in baseball with someone illegally taping the defense coordinator's playcalls in football is patently silly. One thing is done all the time in the sport, by every on-deck batter and every time a runner gets to second base. The other is done, well, never. By anybody. One is considered totally a part of the game within reason, and the only is wholly not allowed.

For the two reasons I mentioned above, to compare the Phillies' transgressions -- if even proven or admitted -- to those of the Patriots is redonkulous. But there's an even dumber point to all of this, something which I heard Buster Olney communicate quite well on ESPN Radio a couple of days back, and which I think basically opens and shuts the issue of whether this is really a big deal, and why you won't hear boo about the Phillies stealing signs in the future despite people still to this day talking all the time about what a dirty, cheating, lying bunch of scuzzbuckets the New England Patriots are. In football, the signs the Pats willingly stole are signs that could not be obtained anywhere else, in any other way other than using cameras to record them during walkthroughs and even during games. With the Phillies, on the other hand, it is in my view not even very likely that the binoculars were being used to pick up the catcher's signs, because if the Phils wanted to steal those signs there is a much better way of doing that than having some old man with bad vision sit behind a grating deep in left field and stare through binoculars at a little man crouched some 450 feet away -- just turn on the damn tv! I mean, have these guys ever watched a baseball game on television? Ever? That center field camera -- you know, the one that they show mostly every single pitch from in the entire game -- basically captures the catcher's signs on almost every single pitch. Believe me, if the Phillies -- or any other team for that matter -- wanted to steal the catcher's pitch signs, they wouldn't even dream of having some old fart peer at them through tiny bino's 150 yards away. They would either look up at the tv screen, or if not available, pay $5 a month for unlimited tv access on someone's iPhone. That's all. They could pay a teenager probably $25 a week to record the signs from every single pitch every thrown at Phillies hitters through an entire season, from the comfort of his own den at home. So to suggest that that's what was going on with the Phillies coach and his binoculars against the Rockies and the Mets this season, it is just plain ludicrous and they can suck it. Yeah, that's the reason the Mets haven't performed well against the Phillies the last few seasons -- we're stealing signs! It's not that the Phils are the best lineup in the National League in 50 years or anything, that has nothing to do with it. Johann Santana woulda shut the Phils out the other day (instead of giving up 10 runs in under 4 innings) if only we hadn't been stealing his signs. Uh huh. I got news for you, Mets and Rockies fans: any professional baseballer will tell you that the great pitchers, when they are on, would still get everybody out even if the batters knew what pitch was coming when. Comparing this "scandal" to that of the Patriots or any real-life cheaters out there is unfair to the Phillies, but more than that it is unfair to the teams like the Eagles that the Patriots brutalized by their illegal, sleazy disqualification-worthy deceptions.

Lastly, no sports recap from this weekend could possibly be complete without mentioning the Philadelphia Flyers. Now, I'm not going to sit here and act like I'm the biggest Flyers fan this side of Broad Street nowadays. But when I was a kid, I was all about the Flyers. My family had season tickets -- there's no better live sport to go see than NHL hockey, bar none -- and I grew up playing street hockey with the kids in the neighborhood basically 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and my older brother and I were as in to the Flyers as anyone was in to any team when we were younger. My interest has waned somewhat in the wake of some truly disastrous decisions made by the league, its owners and its players over the past several years, but in the end of course I am from Philly and always get excited to see one of my childhood love-affair teams doing well. And what the Flyers did in Boston over the past week is absolutely legendary stuff. After dropping to an early 3 games to 0 series deficit in their second-round playoff matchup with the Boston Bruins, the Flyers suddenly turned everything around, winning Game 4 at home before taking Game 5 in Boston and then the must-win Game 6 at home again to force an unlikely Game 7 back at the Garden in Boston. To make matters even worse, however, the Flyers then quickly fell to a 3-0 deficit in Game 7, on the road, all in the first ten minutes of the game one day after losing their starting goalie for the next month or more. But then something clicked, and this team that knows No Fucking Quit at all scored a goal to end the first period, another in the 2nd, and then they tied it up in the 3rd before scoring the go-aheader with about 7 minutes left in the game to take the win and the series 4 games to 3. Although it is the third time in NHL history that a team has fought back from a 3-0 series deficit, it is the first time that that team did so in a Game 7 on the road in which they dropped quickly down 3-0 in goals just minutes after the puck was dropped. And after this Flyers team quickly went out and spizzanked the Canadians 6-0 to start the Eastern Conference Finals on Sunday night, one has to wonder if this year's Flyers are another Team of Destiny for Philadelphia, the city that once was a place were sports championships were just never won.

Winners and Losers

The NFL packed another powerful punch in Week 2, with several big winners and several big losers emerging from what we saw all Sunday long across the world's best professional sports league bar none.

The Big Winners:

Rex Ryan. The automated phone call to 55,000 Jets season ticket holders during the week, encouraging them to come out and support the team as hard as they can and hinting at expected victory for the first time against the Cheatriots in New York since 2000. Keeping his rookie quarterback totally in the game and not requiring him to do too much. Holding the Cheats to just 9 points in his first time coaching against Bill Belichik. In fact, giving up just 9 and 7 points in his first two games as head coach. Watch out for the Jets in the biggest sports media market in the world.

Jay Cutler. Cutler didn't exactly play great against the Steelers' vaunted defense, but he sure saved himself a whole world of heartache by throwing the fourth-quarter td pass to Johnny Knox to secure a win this week and stop himself from starting off 0-2 in Chicago. Although Cutler only threw for 236 yards on the day, it was enough to win against a very stingy defense, and more importantly, his line included two tds and no picks, a huge improvement from the 77 interceptions he threw against the Packers at Lambeau last week. Cutler has been redeemed for now, and his Bears are right back in the hunt for the hotly-contested NFC North.

Eli Manning. Say what you want about the guy, but Eli is getting better every single week, and he is downright proficient at leading a 4th-quarter offense. And how 'bout that 360-turnaround play and then accurate throw in the fourth quarter of Sunday night's game against the Cowboys? That was Favre-esque, and by that I mean the athletic, youthful version of Favre we used to see with the Packers several decades ago. Eli's Giants are off to a 2-0 start in the NFC East, and put a serious damper on the opening of the Cowboys' opulent new stadium in Dallas. And special kudos also go out to new Giants starting wideout Mario Manningham, who now has 13 receptions for 208 yards and two touchdowns through his first two games as a starter in New York, helping to fill the void left by the self-shooting Plaxico Burress.

Drew Brees. Wow. Nine touchdowns in two games this year, after easily outperforming all other NFL quarterbacks in 2008 as well in completing 65% of his passes for 34 touchdowns and 5069 yards last season. The Saints are averaging 46.5 points per game to start the season, and with the Panthers playing like dog poop, it looks like the Saints will be talking playoffs (cue the Jim Mora "Playoffs?!" soundbite here) soon enough coming out of the NFC South.

The Losers:

TO. Even with the Bills winning their game this weekend to move to 1-1, TO is quickly picking up right where he left off last year as far as his season being defined more by two blatant drops so far in his first two games than by any actual highlights he's been coming up with. Yeah he scored his first touchdown this weekend, but have you seen his stats so far on the season? We're 1/8 of the way through NFL 2009 already, and TO is at 5 catches for 98 yards and 1 score. Not good. Nor is it good that TO was seen angrily yelling at the fans on the sidelines after his touchdown this weekend, nor suggesting after last week's loss that his quarterback "needs to throw the ball downfield" more. Uh huh, Terrell. Just catch the damn ball.

Tony Romo. 13 of 29 for 127 yards on national tv on Sunday night to open the Cowboys' new gem of a stadium? One touchdown but three picks, all of which led to touchdowns for the Giants on the night? Granted one of the interceptions was a flukey off-the-shoe tip catch by Giants rookie Bruce Johnson, but still, Romo looked like crap on Sunday night, there's just no other way to say it. And how tired are we all getting of having to look at Wade Phillips' obviously confused, beaten-down mug on the sidelines 85 times a game for the Cowboys? Thank god that guy'll be long gone a year from now. Hope everyone likes the idea of Mike Shanahan or Bill Cowher's scowl on those sidelines, because that's what we other NFC East fans will be seeing a lot of starting in 2010.

The Tennessee Titans. The last team to lose a game in 2008 has now started off 2009 at 0-2, thanks to not enough offense and a very poor defensive showing giving up 420 yards against the Houston Texans this weekend. This week's beneficiary was Texans quarterback Matt Schaub, who followed up his awful performance against the Jets in week 1 with a 359-yard, four-touchdown outburst against the defending AFC South champions this Sunday. Also spoiled in the loss was the Titan's Chris Johnson's sick-ass effort, scoring on touchdown runs of 91 and 57 yards on the day in addition to catching a td pass of 69 yards. Now that right there is a fantasy football players' dream, especially the super dumb leagues that award extra points for touchdowns of more than 50 yards.

Special Category: The Loser Winners:

The Washington Redskins. A 9-7 "win", if you can even call it that, over the hapless St. Louis Rams this weekend doesn't even begin to describe the ineptitude shown by both teams at Fedex Field on Sunday afternoon. Skins qb Jason Campbell did throw for 245 yards in the win, but obviously no td passes as four 60-yard drives for the Skins stalled out at or before the red zone without the team notching a single touchdown against a Rams squad who has won only twice in their last 18 games. Daniel Snyder continues his reign of terror in Washington, DC, bringing in an endless parade of overpriced superstars and ineffective coaches to the nation's capital and absolutely wasting his time yet again this year in the NFC East.

And then there are the Raiders, and more specifically, quarterback Jamarcus Russel against the Chiefs in Kansas City. Russell went 7 for 24 for 109 yards on a thoroughly miserable day in the pocket, and yet somehow that was enough to win the game! In fact, this entire game was a total and utter mismatch, with the Chiefs amassing 409 total yards to the Raiders' paltry 166, earning 25 first downs to the Raiders' 11, and holding the ball for nearly 39 minutes to the Raiders' 21, but yet none of this could stop Jamarcus Russel from becoming the second quarterback in more than twelve years to complete less than 30 percent of his passes with a minimum of 20 attempts but still win an NFL game. It's hard to imagine an uglier win than this one, or an uglier franchise than the Oakland Raiders.

And the Biggest Loser of All award goes to:

NBC. What on earth are these guys doing with their Sunday Night Football coverage? This is Dick Ebersol's big plan to keep NBC relevant to the football scene in the U.S.? Faith Hill copying Hank Williams with a ghey pre-recorded song just prior to the coverage of the kickoff? Repeatedly showing the letters "SNF" to promote their own Sunday Night Football brand, also clearly copied directly from the long-standing MNF Monday Night Football moniker? And then, somehow, forbidding the studio commentators from referring to "NBC" at all during the opening segment and at halftime, instead insisting on repeated references to "Football Night in America". Football Night in America? On a day that is chock full from dawn to dusk with NFL football games, Sunday night is now going to be known across the nation and the globe as "Football Night in America"? Keep dreaming, NBC. And keep dreaming that your tagline "I've been waiting all day for Sunday night" will speak to a single viewer of your games, who once again have just spent an entire fucking day watching nothing but NFL football games! Why on earth would any of us be waiting all day for Sunday night? It's one thing to just blindly copy Monday Night Football like a bunch of plagiaristic lemmings, but for crying out loud, use your brains at least a teensy little bit and change the things that don't make any sense whatsoever when applied to Sunday Night Football instead of Monday night. On Mondays, depending on the matchup, I and I'm sure many of you out there do in fact look forward all day to the Monday night game. But on Sunday? I'm surprised they didn't just call their Sunday night broadcast "Monday Night Football" and not change that either when they stole it from ABC. What an absolute joke, top to bottom on NBC's coverage of the Sunday night games.

And NBC, I have a newsflash for you: Keith Olberman and Dan Patrick were really, really cool co-anchors on SportsCenter back in the day. But that was literally 18 years ago now. Today, Keith Olberman is widely regarded as one of the biggest assholes on network tv, so partisan and biased in his unprofessional "reporting" that he had to be kicked off of covering all political events on MSNBC, and NBC viewers don't want to see him anywhere on the network, including on Sunday night football games instead of the refuse pile where his stale ass belongs. And Dan Patrick is, well, old. In 1992 when Patrick used to bust out with "the Whiff" on a strikeout in baseball and "en fuego" to describe Michael Jordan's latest run, it was really new, cool and refreshing. Now Patrick's shtick is just old, and boring. Seriously -- really, really boring. And then to go along with the tired Keith Olberman and Dan Patrick routine, you bring in Tony Dungy and some other guy I've never heard of or seen before to liven things up? I've got some more news for you, NBC. Tony Dungy may be a very nice man, he may have endured a very sad situation with his son. He may have somehow underperformed and got overrated for that underperformance for years as a coach in Tampa Bay and then in Indianapolis. And, he may even have somehow hitched his wagon to Mike Vick this year and yet still, somehow, come away from it all squeaky-clean as ever. And of course Dungy may be a deeply religious man. But, unfortunately for NBC, none of this does anything to make Dungy even remotely interesting as a football commentator. He is just terrible, and the team put together by NBC for the Sunday night coverage is without a doubt the worst of any network, any game, covering football games on television in my entire lifetime. There, I said it.

Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies' magic number is 6 baybeeee. Bring it on.

Superbowl Surprise, Online Overlays and Drunk Suckouts

WOW. A lot to get to today. But first things first...



The Hoy is back in its regularly-scheduled time slot and place tonight at 10pm ET on full tilt. Mondays at the Hoy is the name, 6-max no-limit holdem is the game. $26 buyin, same as always. The crowds have been well into the 30s for the past few weeks, and people seem to be digging the faster pace (and shorter overall tournament length) of 6-max, so come on out and see what everyone is having so much fun with as we start the week in blogger tournaments off right.

And congratulations to KOD not only for final tabling that donkeyfest known as the 28k again last week, but then for chopping the pokerstars 25k over the weekend for a little over $5100 cash money. Chad is the undisputed king of navigating the big donkey fields. I will never understand now he does it.

Now on to the real story of the day....the Superbowl.

Ever since we were children, most of us were raised with this one basic precept regarding those who don't follow the rules: Cheaters never win, and winners never cheat. Well, the New England Cheatriots have proven that old saying wrong time and again over the past several years, winning three superbowls and getting their names into the record books for a number of reasons this year in recording the first ever 16-0 season in the NFL on their march to yesterday's superbowl matchup with the hated New York Giants. It turns out that the Cheatriots have spent the better part of the past five or six seasons (at least) cheating in a way that is obviously very significant to the outcome of their games, and they've been steamrolling the entire NFL the whole time while they've been doing it. Not only were the Cheatriots busted for videotaping the New York Jets' defensive signal-calling during a game early in this, their record-setting, undefeated season, but it even came out this very past week that Coach Bill Belicheat has been taking advantage of illegal videotaping of opposing teams for many years, even in the biggest of games, including the superbowl against the St. Louis Rams five years ago. So here you've got a guy who has been cheating very deliberately, and in clear violation -- flauntingly, in many cases, after receiving repeated warnings -- and has done nothing but win win win as a result.

Well, this weekend, finally, mercifully, came Vindication. And don't go dismissing my ranting today as that of a crazed Giants fan just because I live in New York. I'm not just not a fan of the Giants -- I hate the Giants. I abhor them. With a serious passion. As you know if you've read here for some time, I am from Philadelphia and I have grown up with a deep-seated hatred for every single New York team, the Giants in particular as they have always played in the Eagles' division and have now won not one, not two but three superbowls while the Eagles still have yet to win one. So I hate this year's superbowl champions more than probably any single person I know. But, just like my Phillies's incredible comeback to knock the New York Mets out of the playoffs in 2007, the Giants' last-minute victory over the New England Cheatriots will always be remembered by me, as will the team that went 18-0 and then couldn't win the big game. It ruins the Cheatiot's entire "perfect" 2007-2008 season, in a way that I could never have dreamed of. Now, they are nothing. Nothing!! You can go undefeated all you want -- now all the Cheatriots are are the only team in the history of the NFL to go 18-1 and not win the superbowl. And even though it's the lowly, despicable, New York Giants who beat them, I can only keep thinking one thing about it all.

Fuck 'em.

Cheaters never win, and winners never cheat. Fuck you, New England. Fuck you straight to hell, you despicable lowlife asshole losers. And when I say losers, I mean L-O-S-E-R-S.

Now go buy some nice t-shirts here that I bet will be getting a ton of good business today from like-minded fans such as myself.

With the superbowl on tv and with most of the northeastern U.S. preoccupied with it at least, I noticed two main effects in the world of online poker. First, there were more and bigger overlays in the major guaranteed tournaments than I have ever seen before, and this was something I tried to take advantage of as best as I could as I have done in the past on days like this. The 50-50 at 9:30pm ET, which needs basically 1000 runners to make the 50k guarantee, had something like 760 people playing. That is by far the biggest overlay I've ever seen in this thing. By far. Even the pokerstars equivalent of the 50-50 had to rely on some last-minute late-registration stragglers to surpass its own guarantee by a couple hundred dollars, something which to my knowledge has never happened even one time before. At 10:30pm ET on full tilt there was a mega-satellite into the $322 buyin FTOPS #9 nlh tournament, a $50 buyin sat with 10 seats guaranteed. In the end there were I think 52 runners or something like that -- at least four of us bloggers -- which again represented a nice overlay that made me want to play it even more than I otherwise already always try to play these multi-seat megasatellite tournaments, even though I have already qualified for FTOPS #9 as it is so I was really just playiing for cash in the end.

Unfortunately, along with those huge overlays all over the major online poker sites due to the superbowl in the U.S., there were also I am sure tons of drunks and idiots on their computers playing this game with cards, button-mashing at its finest no doubt, the result of which was more suckouts and horrible poker plays even than usual, even for a Sunday online. So it was a mixed bag overall, which of course for me led to even more than my usual 6 or 7 suckout-eliminations a night in the online poker world. If you clowns took as many bad beats as I do on a regular basis, there wouldn't be a poker blogger community because none of you would play poker anymore. If it's not a suckout then it's a setup, but it's all the same stuff in the end -- 90% of my eliminations from poker tournaments are plays I would make again and again and again and most often situations where by all rights I should have survived to see another hand and play another orbit at least. This past Sunday was without a doubt the worst button mashing I have ever seen across the board in the world of online poker, and I'm sure the superbowl going on had a lot to do with that.

Let me give you just one example from the 50-50, which I think was my favorite hand of the entire night that I saw, and is one that actually did not end in a suckout for me. This was probably about 90 minutes in to the 5050, with the blinds at 80-160 I think. Check this out and I defy you to tell me my opponent was sober here:

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hoyazo [As Ks]
BIMMERGAL808 has 15 seconds left to act
BIMMERGAL808 raises to 480
Dixit folds
highplaya folds
tokenjay has 15 seconds left to act
tokenjay folds
mellowyellow74 folds
hoyazo has 15 seconds left to act
hoyazo raises to 1,380 Although I like to change things up just enough to keep my opponent honest, I will usually raise or reraise one raiser preflop with most AK hands in big spots in tournaments.
jimmyvjackson folds
honkytonk99 folds
Poker_Cuervo folds
BIMMERGAL808 has 15 seconds left to act
BIMMERGAL808 calls 900
*** FLOP *** [5d 5c 2c]
BIMMERGAL808 checks
hoyazo has 15 seconds left to act
hoyazo bets 1,600 Standard c-bet. If I get reraised here, I know I am beat although at that point I probably have to call anyways with just 420 chips left.
BIMMERGAL808 has 15 seconds left to act
BIMMERGAL808 has requested TIME
BIMMERGAL808 calls 1,600
*** TURN *** [5d 5c 2c] [9c]
BIMMERGAL808 checks
hoyazo bets 420, and is all in No reason not to put in the rest at this point, even though I must be beat, right? Right?
BIMMERGAL808 calls 420
hoyazo shows [As Ks]
BIMMERGAL808 shows [Jh Kc] Muhahahahahahahahahaha!

Go ahead, explain that one to me please. Calls the preflop reraise with KJo? Then calls my c-bet on a raggy flop with just the KJo unimproved? What, he put me on QJo I guess? Somebody please try to tell me that guy was sober. Bullshit. I say he was probably some anussy Boston fan who had already drunk himself into oblivion as the superbowl had probably just ended, and just wanted to tilt off the rest of his chips so he could drown himself in his bottle of Sam Adams Winter Lager. But these guys making plays just like this were simply all over the place on full tilt and pokerstars last night. Normally for most people that would be a good thing of course, but when you are a raging suckout magnet such as myself, it's all bad.

In the end, I got sucked out recockulously from the 5050 by a guy who called my pot-sized bet on the flop with just an pocket underpair of 9s, and then of course managed to suck out his set on the river. In fact as I mentioned I think I got sucked out on maybe 11 or 12 times in just 5 or 6 hours of poker on the day, including a little bit of cash, several sngs and a few satellites and other multi-table tournaments on the night. I did record a small cash in a pokerstars O8 tournament, and I ended up winning the $322 cash prize in the FTOPS #9 megasatellite after sitting around on a short stack for a long while before finally winning a big hand with pocket Kings after 90 minutes of no cards to speak of. And, I ran pretty deep in the stars version of the 50-50 as well, which is actually a $55 buyin event that usually has a few hundred more players than the full tilt equivalent. I wanted to profile the hand I busted out on before I sign off today, and find out from you guys what, if anything, you think I did wrong here. I think there are several places where I might have made a suboptimal decision, but to be honest I'm really not so sure about that and I would love your thoughts.

So we are down to around 90 players left in the stars 50-50, we are well into the money already which began I think at 153 players remaining. I have a nice stack, just a little above average but good for around 30th place out of 90 players remaining, I'm in the big blind with 97s. Early middle position raises the 1600-chip big blind up 2.5x to 4000, and then the button calls the 4000 raise as well. So it's 2400 chips to me to go to see a 3-way flop with the 97s on a nice healthy stack:



Do you guys play this here? Obviously, I did play it, and I think in large part because I have confidence in my postflop play that I won't lose a lot with this hand if I don't connect solidly, either with a huge made hand or a huge draw. But what do you guys think of this call? It is 2400 chips into an 11,750-chip pot, giving me basically 4-to-1 odds, and in the end I just decided, especially given my healthy stack, I had to call here. I've got two nice-sized stacks in the hand with me, so I know that if I hit this flop hard I can really get into prime position. I certainly don't feel bad about having called here at all, and I know it wasn't a huge mistake either way, but I would be very interested in hearing others' thoughts on this question.

So here was the flop:



Obviously this is a large flop for me. I flopped a flush draw, an inside straight draw and even the inside straight flush draw. I have to figure I have at least 12 outs, and that's assuming that my 9s and 7s are not themselves outs against another high-card hand, which could bring my hand to a total of 18 outs, assuming I'm not already ahead of whatever these guys have with my 9-high. Does anyone like to bet out here?

I opted not to, for a couple of reasons. First, I feel like I have a huge draw, but obviously no made hand, and these guys both have big enough stacks to cripple me if I make this pot needlessly big without applying the ultimate pressure in the hand. And secondly, with my huge draw and on a flop that is unlikely to have hit either the preflop smallish raiser's hand or the smooth caller on my right, I saw this as an awesome check-raise allin opportunity. So I checked it, and the original preflop raiser bet out, somewhat smallish at a little under 2/3 the size of the pot:



The preflop smooth caller on my right folded, leaving me heads-up against this player whose every action so far in the hand seemed consistent with just a two-high-card hand, maybe a small pocket pair or some kind of Ace-rag. He raised smallish preflop, and bet smallish on the flop as well. And most importantly, with the huge draw I had flopped, this guy's 9000 chip bet on the flop still left him with 26k in chips behind, giving him ample ability to fold anything but a real strong hand to my allin checkraise. All the factors were present for my checkraise, and I had flopped a large draw that was close to a favorite if not the favorite against most hands I would expect him to have in this spot, so I decided to go for it, fully expecting him to lay it down:



Again, I would love to hear your thoughts on this play. It is aggressive for sure, there's no doubt about that, but even as I look it over here after my elimination I still can't help but feel I would play the same hand this exact same way again. But what do you guys think? Sure anyone can say just lay it down, but I am curious in particular to hear from some of the guys (and gals) with some actual poker tournament success here as to what you think of this aggressive move by me in this particular spot.

So the guy called off his entire stack with just A3 here, but unfortunately for me, it was an A3 also soooted in diamonds like my 97s was:



Thus, 9 of my outs disappeared in a flash, leaving me with just 3 of the 4 Eights to make a non-flush straight, the 8 of diamonds to make a straight flush, and 3 Sevens and 3 Nines to make a pair. So I still had ten outs left even against his nut flush draw, but that was some bad luck there to run into the nut flush draw like that given the way this hand had played out. I still think he lays down to my allin checkraise there a good 80% of the time or so given his preflop hand range, but not in this case. I'm also trying to figure if even this was really a good call by him, even holding the nut flush. I'm too lazy to do the math, but I suppose if he wants to count the three other Aces as outs for him -- a very questionable move given my allin checkraise on the flop -- then with 12 outs there was surely more than enough dead money in the pot already to make the call a +EV one. But more reasonably, if he thinks he has just the 9 flush outs, I wonder if it is still the right call to make here. Probably, in a close decision. But I like to think I would've laid his hand down in this spot, with the 26k in chips, still plenty of ammo to get right back into this tournament, given the pair on the board, and with just the 35% chance of hitting by the river. I don't know. Again to me it all feels like I played this hand the way I wanted too -- admittedly quite aggressively -- and I just lucked out, which I probably should have known given all the miserable troubles I have had in my poker career in being up against higher flushes with lower flushes, or full houses with nut flushes, etc.

Anyways, two bricks later, none of my 10 outs comes through and IGH in I think 90th or 89th place for a small cash of a little over a hundred bucks for my efforts. It was a good time and one of several nice runs in well-structured tournaments for me over the weekend, but as is often the case, I am left wondering even the next morning still, did I play this hand right? What do you think was the optimal way to play in this spot?

See you guys tonight for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!

Friday Musings

Well it's another Friday here at hammerplayer, and it's been a long and hectic week for me of working and trying to take care of the kids in the evenings with Hammer Wife sick at the homestead, and I feel on the brink of another "random thoughts" post like I have often found myself wanting to do at the end of the week of late. Sometimes I toy with making this a regular Friday feature here at the blog, which I suppose I still might do at some point, I guess you never know. So for now let me just start with some poker thoughts and then see where this stream of consciousness takes us from there.

So for starters, congratulations to Donkette for winning the latest Riverchasers tournament this Thursday night on full tilt. Ironic that on the very day that I list Lori among clearly the best of the Riverchasers players, she goes and wins that night's private blogger tournament, so great job by her, not that I am surprised to see it. More ironic though is the few comments I received from fellow Riverchasers players yesterday questioning how I could include Lori on that list. Well, hopefully all you clowns learned a little something last night about ever doubting Lori. Donkette has the formula down for winning blonkament poker, and she overcame a very tough field which included among other players Waffles and Surflexus at the final table, both players I specifically discussed in my post yesterday regarding who seems best-suited to play well in the blogger tournaments.

Personally, I played some of the worst, dumbest poker of my life yesterday, and as has been the case scarily often of late in the Riverchasers, I managed to survive all the way to the middle of the last two tables doing just that before finally succumbing. I was pushing allin on huge overbets early and often, getting it allin in I think three of the first five hands of the night for an example. It was fun, pushing in with nothing, with the hammer, with second pair 7 kicker, whatever. RC is a good place to do that I have found, although as you can imagine if you keep that style of play up for a couple of hours straight, you are bound to get burned eventually, which is exactly what happened to me last night. Just a few minutes before the second break, down to 16 players remaining as I recall, I played the hammer for a raise, getting just one call from RiverchasersRich. Now Rich I'm sure is a good guy, and I am equally sure he has not forgotten that recockulous hand a month ago or so when I also went into the RC tournament playing like an aggrodonk, calling the 7th raise preflop with T8s before I went on to river a straight against Rich's pocket Aces and knock him out on the very first hand. So last night, I raised with a shortish stack and Rich called me out of the blinds I think. The flop came paired and raggy, 866 or some shiat like that, and I aggro-pushed allin for about 3 times the size of the pot. Rich thought for a few seconds, and then opted to call me with the obvious monster hand of AQ unimproved. Now as much as I'd love to slam Rich for the play, like I said I was going out of my way to play like an aggromonkey for the past two hours, so I applaud Rich for putting a third of his stack at risk and calling with just AQo unimproved, and even though I felt like the hammer should spike a card and win that pot, it didn't happen and IGH in 16th place. But the fact that I keep running deep in RC despite purposefully setting out to play like a monkey really says something I think. What it says, I'm not so sure. But I pwn the Riverchasers tournament so I figure I can play it however I want at this point. Good times for me and I congratulated Rich on a nice call, which I was sorry to see he could not parlay into a win, although if it can't be Rich winning with my chips, you can't pick a better player than Donkette to take it all down.

So what else is going on? Oh yeah we have the superbowl this weekend. It seems the fashionable pick all this week has been Giants all the way. Most of the major pundits I run into, the ESPN guys and the NFL Today guys and such, all seem to like the Giants and the points, even as the point spread has consistently fallen since the initial line and is now down at what, 11.5 points? So I'm going to go out on a limb here and pick the Cheatriots minus the points. The Cheatriots are far and away the best team in football, the Cheatriots have far and away the best offense in the league, probably in the history of the league (seriously). The Cheatriots have a great defense as well. And the Cheatriots have one of the great mastermind coaches of all time as well as far as I am concerned, though I suppose it is hard to know exactly how much of his success has been due to the cheating and how much is due to his prowess as a strategist, but I do believe Bellicheat is a brilliant strategist despite his despicable and unforgiveable actions over the past five years.

I do have a lot of respect for the Giants defense, which I think should at least be able to hold the Cheatriots powerhouse offense in check to some degree, at least for a while. But I still don't like that matchup for the Giants. And while Eli Manning and the Giants have had a few very solid games in a row on offense, making few to no mistakes, at the end of the day if I have to pick either the Cheatriots defense or the Giants offense, I have to go with the Cheatriots. In fact, I think a lot of this game really comes down to the high-level matchups. I like the Giants offense these past few weeks, but I choose the Cheatriots defense over the Giants offense heads-up. As I said I have a lot of respect for the Giants defense, but again I have to take the Cheatriots incredible and hostoric offense over the Giants defense head-to-head. And while again I think Tom Coughlin is a decent head coach, Bellicheat is simply the best in the league hands-down, both at cheating and at coaching, so again the nod has to go to the Pats. Basically I struggle hard to find one area where the Giants excel over the Cheatriots head-to-head -- I suppose maybe in special teams, but even there I wouldn't go nuts given the Giants' kicking woes among other things. For that reason, I have to go with the Pats to win, even by more than the 11 points. I see this all the time in the NFL -- two teams met up during the season and either had a blowout or played a real close game or something, and then everyone places too much emphasis on that prior matchup when placing their bets for the big game. Yeah I know the Giants played this team close in the last week of the season. But I'm not believing the hype. I say Cheatriots by more than 11 points and I am pretty sure I will be right here, leaving once again most of the commentators in the dust who insist on going with the popular but not smart pick. In the end, this should be one of the biggest mismatches in Superbowl history in terms of overall talent on all sides of the ball and the sidelines, and 11.5 points should not be enough to cover what the Cheatriots should do to the Giants. They are going to devise a way to get to Manning, and as any NFL fan this year knows, that is always trouble for the G-Men.

What else? Well, Lost started up again last night, and let me just say that I have to give that show a straight-up A. I won't quite go to the A+ grade because I didn't fall out of my chair like I did back when the hatch was opened, or that one Desmond episode with all the crazy future shiat, but dam that was a great episode last night, wasn't it? They picked up the story very well right where it left off last season, and the move from flashing back to flashing forward I have got to say could not come at a more perfect time. My view is that after three seasons of all these flashbacks, we already know enough about these people's lives before the plane crash that led them to be stranded on the island to begin with. Even going back and watching the earlier seasons really bugged me in a way to see all those flashbacks, so to see the writers have backed away from that feature for the fourth season was a brilliant move, and of course there's no way any of you fans out there were anything but enthralled about all of the flashing forward that went down.

"The Oceanic 6"? Hmmmmm. Jack we know, and Kate we know as well from the finale last year. Hurley now we know too. But who else? Who was in the coffin Jack went to see last season? Who was the "he" that Jack and Kate were referring to in the finale? Sawyer, presumably? And who was this Oceanic lawyer dude who visited Hurley after their rescue? Great casting right there with him, whoever made the call deserves a promotion in my book. But who do we think was that guy? Individually, who was he, but more than that, who does he work for? Who was he representing? That's the crazy aspect to things. Who keeps trying to figure out what happened to the rest of the Losties? Shit, I'd like to know what happens to the rest of 'em, since it seems like a big portion were left on the island. You can just see it now, these 6 people are going to basically screw over the rest and leave them there while they find a way to escape. This is going to be good, learning how that all happens, hopefully over the next two months instead of two years.

But tell me something -- how the funk are you gonna convince me that all those people would go with frigging Locke of all people right when they were about to be rescued from the island? No way. No frigging way. It would never happen. They've been stranded there for what, 3 or 4 months now, and Locke has systematically destroyed every possible means of them escaping the island at every step of the way. Now the boat has been called and they're on their way, and what? Now they're going with Locke who wants to avoid the boat? Come on guys, you have to be able to do better than that if you want to convince me. So no A+ from me, but I give it a straight-up A and am already looking forward to Episode 2 of Season 4 of the greatest show of this milennium, hands-down.

Is there any doubt that The 40-Year-Old Virgin is the funniest movie of the past decade? Does anyone even try to debate that at this point?

Is Superbad really as funny as everyone says? I will definitely watch it at some point but man everyone I talk to has just nothing but high praise for that shiat.

And speaking of Lost and movies, did anyone out there see Cloverfield, which I believe is produced by JJ Abrams, the same guy who created Lost? What's the deal with that movie, if anyone out there has seen it. I love me a good sci-fi flick, but I have heard very mixed reviews of Cloverfield, with some people (my little brother, with admittedly the single worst taste in movies of all time) claiming it is the greatest movie ever, and many others saying it is boring, or just even too hard to watch with all the moving camera angles used by Abrams. Anyone have an opinion for me?

OK I'ma go ahead and post this thing up now, but I did want to make one more point. There is a very common misuse of a word out there that I am just seeing and hearing more and more and more especially among our little group, and I would like to do my part to clarify and correct this error once and for all. This website, http://hammerplayer.blogspot.com, is my blog. It is made up of a bunch of posts I make, once every weekday or so for the past few years, mostly relating to poker. But those individual things you read every day are posts, not blogs. This whole website is a blog, the individual posts are called posts. Got it, everyone? You know who you are. Good.

Not sure that I will make the donkament tonight as I have a friend in town. But you should, 9pm ET on full tilt, password as always is "donkarama". Have a lucky weekend and maybe I'll run into you on the virtual felt.